A Hoosier Chronicle eBook

“By George,” he exclaimed, “I promised
Allen to take you up to Sally Owen’s. You
know Mrs. Owen? That’s right; Allen said
she’s been asking about you. She likes
young folks; she’ll never be old herself.
Allen and I are going there for supper, and he’s
asked her if he might bring you along. Aunt Sally’s
a great woman. And”—­he grinned
ruefully—­“a good trader. She
has beat me on many a horse trade, that woman; and
I always go back to try it again. You kind o’
like having her do you. And I guess I’m
the original easy mark when it comes to horse.
Get your hat and come along. Allen’s fixed
this all up with her. I guess you and she are
the best friends the boy’s got.”

CHAPTER XII

BLURRED WINDOWS

With Sylvia’s life in college we have little
to do, but a few notes we must make now that she has
reached her sophomore year. She had never known
girls until she went to college and she had been the
shyest of freshmen, the least obtrusive of sophomores.

She had carried her work from the start with remarkable
ease and as the dragons of failure were no longer
a menace she began to give more heed to the world
about her. She was early recognized as an earnest,
conscientious student whose work in certain directions
was brilliant; and as a sophomore her fellows began
to know her and take pride in her. She was relieved
to find herself swept naturally into the social currents
of the college. She had been afraid of appearing
stiff or priggish, but her self-consciousness quickly
vanished in the broad, wholesome democracy of college
life. The best scholar in her class, she was
never called a grind and she was far from being a frump.
The wisest woman in the faculty said of Sylvia:
“That girl with her head among the stars has
her feet planted on solid ground. Her life will
count.” And the girlhood that Sylvia had
partly lost, was recovered and prolonged. It
was a fine thing to be an American college girl, Sylvia
realized, and the varied intercourse, the day’s
hundred and one contacts and small excitements, meant
more to her than her fellow students knew. When
there was fun in the air Sylvia could be relied upon
to take a hand in it. Her allowance was not meagre
and she joined zestfully in such excursions as were
possible, to concerts, lectures, and the theatre.
She had that reverence for New England traditions
that is found in all young Westerners. It was
one of her jokes that she took two Boston girls on
their first pilgrimage to Concord, a joke that greatly
tickled John Ware, brooding in his library in Delaware
Street.

A few passages from her letters home are illuminative
of these college years. Here are some snap-shots
of her fellow students:—­